stevesbets

And I’m watching seriously hoping they take Ty Lawson. Please not Maynor one time….

I’ve been reminded by many that my blog has been broken when it comes to recent updates. I’ve always been told that late is better than never so I’m going to pick things up by blogging 3 times a week every week for the summer so check back often for more updates.

With my extended absence I have much to discuss.

I have frequently been criticized, mainly by friends’ parents for “wasting” money on designer jeans. This is a topic that I find so absurd it is worthy of a blog paragraph. Simply because something is available for cheaper does not mean that a more expensive version is a waste. Jeans are the most important articles of clothing that I own since I wear them pretty much every day year round. I would say any given pair I wear approximately 40-50 times per year and they last for several years. At a price tag averaging $220 per pair, that means that these jeans are costing me less than a dollar per use. I do not drink a morning cup of coffee every day, but I know many of these same people do, mostly from starbucks. They pay $3 there per day making their “use” of coffee a far more expensive habit with less staying power than nice jeans. To counter, one may say that even if they do end up being a value, if you can get an even better value like $40 jeans then it is silly not to. Quite simply, the two products are not substitutes. Unlike some more expensive fashion items, expensive jeans look better, feel better, fit better and last longer than their cheaper counterparts. I hope this blog entry puts to rest the “wastefulness of designer jeans” debate.

For this next paragraph, I’m going to discuss Terminator Salvation. If you have not yet seen it, you may want to skip this paragraph. I was greatly looking forward to this movie’s release since the first two movies in the series are two of my all time favorites and the lead, Christian Bale is one of my favorite actors. The first two movies struck an emotional cord concerning what sets us apart from machines and twisted my mind around the consequences of time travel. This movie is nothing but overblown action sequences, plot points that hardly make any sense and an ending that sets up for a sequel but offers nothing else of value. There is no emotional attachment to many characters, and the idea of what sets us apart from the first two movies in the series is totally cast aside as most of the humans are more robotic than the terminators chasing after them. The director “McG” should never be allowed near another movie. Examples of things simply not making sense: The terminators are desperate to stop John Connor (even though they really didnt show what made him so great), so they go after his father Kyle Reese to prevent him from going back in time to conceive John. They catch him, and use him as bait to catch John despite many chances to kill him. Perhaps they “can’t” due to the time travelling paradoxes it may cause, but this movie presented no such thought or dilemmas. Even dumber to me was the final fight sequence where John is in a terminator factory, and yet the only thing that seems to stand in his way of escape is a single machine. I understand that if there were hundreds of terminators around, there would have been no way John could have escaped and then the good guys can’t win, but given this, maybe they shouldn’t have thrown him down in a Terminator factory to begin with. I’m basically very sad about this movie because it could have been so great and was just totally ruined by a seeming lack of thought and effort.

Finally I need to discuss the NBA playoffs since they are my favorite annual sporting event and the Lakers were just crowned champion. I am so beyond sick of how terrible 80% of the coaches are in the league. My beloved Sixers are my first example, they had a first round exit against the Orlando Magic, a team that I actually think they matched up very well against. It was awhile ago, but the most memorable example of poor coaching to me was that they had the 1-4 players switch on every screen rather than showing and fighting through them. So if 6 10 Rashard Lewis set a screen for the much shorter Rafer Alston, Thaddeus Young would switch to Alston and the 6 3 Miller would be stuck on Lewis who could easily post him up and score in the post. While it took Magic coach Stan Van Gundy far too long to figure out just how easy it was to capatalize on this, they eventually did and it is a big reason why the Howardless Magic manhandled the Sixers in Philly during game 6. My friend and I vowed to stop buying tickets until the Sixers get a decent coach. While the jury is out on Eddie Jordan, we are not holding our breath. Next season I am going to blog after every sixers game I watch and comment mainly just on coaching. There is just no excuse for the insane level of dumbness that most teams exhibit. On this topic I would be remiss if I didn’t mention The Magic’s historic collapse at the end of game 4 of the NBA finals. Up 3 with Dwight Howard at the line to shoot 2 with 11 seconds left, it seemed impossible for them to lose. Stan Van Gundy found a way. Many people blame Howard for missing both free throws. But no one is ever coached to miss free throws, the Magic were however coached defensively to do so much wrong on that last possession that I really wonder if NBA coaches are hired by any standard other than nepotism and connections. Firstly, I NEVER understand why teams don’t foul when they are up 3 with hardly any time left. If the opponent has two shots and you are up 3, you can’t lose. No SVG commented that he didnt’ want to get into a FT shooting contest since his team was not shooting well that game so I will ignore the fact that they didn’t foul which by itself is simply inexcusable. Even if you aren’t going to foul though. There is one thing and one thing only to defend and any 5 year old could tell you that it is the area between the half court line and the 3 point line. The Magic pressed and played man to man defense and the Lakers ended up getting Fisher an open long 3 pointer over the shorter Jameer Nelson. If I were coaching, I would line my 5 most athletic players up across half court, have them each take a zone around the 3 point line and guard nothing else. If the Lakers want to take 6 seconds off the clock and score 2, great! If they want to attempt a 3 from beyond half court, great! ANY open 3 from inside half court is simply unacceptable. I almost feel cliched saying it since everyone is, but I just cannot believe that on the biggest stage in the world, million dollar athletes are directed by million dollar coaches who seem too dumb to tie their shoes. I’m convinced that this happens because sadly, in many arenas you look better failing conventionally than succeeding unconventionally. I strongly hope that Eddie Jordan makes decisions that no coaches ever make because they make sense, because they are smart, because they win games and not because it is what every other robotic coach who can’t think for himself does.

1) When people say good luck before playing against me in a poker game, really any poker game but particularly heads up. When people play me, their sole reason for playing me is to beat me (and rightfully so). To say good luck to me is totally disingenuous and I can’t stand it. I make a point of never saying it, I can’t really think of anything more phony. For those who think it is cordial, you are insane and flat out wrong. If anything it is insulting because you expect your opponent to believe it. This is sort of cliched since many have complained about this before me, but I feel I have to blog about it since still so many people doing it. I know now I will probably have many people say it as a “joke” as a result of this blog, but so be it. Anyone that does it should get over themselves and stop immediately

2) When people smoke outside while walking down a crowded street (particularly in New York). While I acknowledge it is totally legal to do so, I cannot imagine ever being so inconsiderate. At this point it is well established that smoking directly causes cancer. I believe that society should be free and if people wish to poison themselves they should 100% be permiited to do so, but they do not have the right to blow a cloud of smoke in my face (thereby giving me cancer) as I’m walking on a public sidewalk. I often run to get in front of people that are smoking since I can’t stand being behind them for longer than a block. Before I get all these comments about how this is inconsistent with my views that society should be free (and that anti-gambling laws are simply outrageous pandering to brainwashed religious zombies) it truly is not. I believe in the Lockean view of the law and the social contract. That is, that people should be free to do what they want so long as what they want does not infringe on the liberty of another. It is hard for me to imagine someone that wouldnt want to be free and have these rights. Gambling online does not hurt anyone except (arguably) those who choose to participate. They have the OPTION to do it. No one is giving me an option of getting poisoned when someone blows smoke in my face which I think is a bit outrageous. I would have no problem whatsoever with the government mandating certain zones outside where it is permissible to smoke (or not permissible to smoke, notably crowded walkways).

+1) While I’m not as passionate about this one as the others, it is happening in the coffee shop I’m in right now so I have to mention it. When people talk so loud at a restaurant that everyone around can hear their conversation. Now I understand people can do this without realizing it, I have probably been guilty of it a few times myself but to do it for over an hour is just ridiculous, additionally, you should be embarrassed that everyone keeps looking over at you but i suppose some people are immune to such embarrassment.

+2) One more thing that I’ve just been thinking about since my religulous blog and it is really making my blood boil. I have some friends who are religious who are among the smartest people i know. I trust their judgment and respect their logic on pretty much every other issue. But whenever the religious debate comes up they become unreasonable shadows of themselves. One friend in particular has a keen ability to distort the truth. I brought up how silly it was that a hospital wastes an elevator to have a “sabbath” elevator. My claim is that if Jewish people (and I technically am one) really feel that god doesn’t want them doing “work” on Saturday (in the form of pushing an elevator button, the sabbath elevator stops on every floor), then how on earth is god ok with inventing gizmos such as this to get around his edict. The whole thing is hypocritical. My friend does not follow these rituals himself, but for some reason he still felt a need to argue tooth and nail in favor of it being a reasonable custom. His tactic allowed me to realize the one that most religious people use when they do endeavor to rationally argue for their beliefs (rather than simply get offended like many do that you DARE question them). He totally changed the debate from my original claim about sabbath elevators to something else entirely. His argument was that there is value in spending one day a week with no electronics etc because there is a ton to be gained by spending time meeting and talking to your friends and neighbors with no intrusion. I found myself arguing him on this point where I think he had some excellent rational ground to stand on. However, this had nothing whatsoever to do with my original point. Kudos to him I suppose for changing the argument to something he had a chance to win but I will not be so easily tricked again by this tactic. The bottom line is that the core tenets of every religion are so irrational that they simply cannot be argued logically without employing tricks and distorting the truth. I welcome people to try in the comments.

Recently I attended the last Sixers game at the Spectrum before it is torn down. For those of you that don’t know, the spectrum served as the home of the Sixers from sometime in the 60s through 1996. They have been playing at it’s new next door neighbor, the Wachovia Center since 1996 but went back to the Spectrum for one last game. On Philly talk radio all day people were serving up their spectrum memories which mostly consisted of the legendary 1983 team with Dr J, Moses, Andrew Toney, Mo Cheeks and company. I was born in 1983 so my memories of this team are a little fuzzy however I do have my own memories from the Spectrum.

I went with my friend Alex who I have been attending Sixers games with since we became old enough to drive. Hard to believe now that this was nearly 10 years ago, just after the drafting of Allen Iverson, the move the Wachovia center and just before the best year for Sixers fans my age, 2001 when they made a run to the finals and Iverson won MVP. We immediately noticed that the concourses were quite tiny and the seats were cramped, however the stands engulfed the court and there was a real community feel to the building

When I was little my dad had partial season tickets to the Sixers at the Spectrum. He would get home from work and we would immediately leave for the games. When I was very young, the games were the only time i spent in his sporty convertible since he worked long hours and most of my car time was spent in the family minivan. I remember the smell of the seats and always feeling like it was the smell of the Sixers game. Back then they announced the starting lineups with the lights on, without a huge video intro and lots of bells and whistles. Nevertheless it was the most exciting thing to me and I would always joyfully scream their starting lineup in the car on the way. I can’t imagine if I were little now as the promotions for kids are bigger and better. Being older and wiser though I prefer less music and noise and more focus on the game that was the standard back at the Spectrum.

The Spectrum to me is not about great teams with Doc and Moses, it is about my favorite player back then, Hersey Hawkins. Along with Johnny Dawkins, Charles Barkley, Rick Mahorn, Armon Gilliam (those 5 being the starting lineup i would announce in the car), Charles Shackelford, Ron Green, Greg Grant, Greg Graham, Jeff Hornacek, Tim Perry, Andrew Lang (the last 3 being the players they got for Barkley in a trade with Phoenix). A string of hapless coaches after Jimmy Lynam that included Doug Mo, Fred Carter, John Lucas and Johnny Davis, and an age of utter futility in Sixers basketball where it was pretty much a given that they wouldn’t make the playoffs and the building was always half empty (until AI arrived on the scene). None of that matter though because I loved the smell of the leather in the car and I was still young enough that I could dream of becoming like Hersey Hawkins. I made this list from memory, how many players and coaches from the early 90s do you remember?